Political parties sceptical about outcome of Telanagana meet

Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao dubbed the all-party meet as a "chillar drama", while the principal opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) called it a "political drama" and the Communist Party of India (CPI) called it a "sham". Other parties too have a similar view about the meet as all feel that it would not yield in any immediate solution.

The Congress, which is supposed to take a call on the issue, has been indifferent given divergent claims of its leaders both at the state and the Centre.

An earlier meeting of eight "recognised" political parties from Andhra Pradesh on the Telangana issue held on January 6, 2011, a week after the Justice Srikrishna Committee submitted its report to the Centre remained inconclusive.

The Srikrishna Committee Report, which was prepared after a year-long exercise and wide-ranging consultations with "all stakeholders" at a cost of over Rs 40 crore in the year 2010, has been cold shouldered by Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde himself, who said that the report would not be the basis for "consultations" at the all-party meet tomorrow.

In fact, Shinde's announcement on December 4 convening the all-party meet had kindled hope that the Centre would try to find a solution to the vexatious issue that has been causing turmoil in Andhra Pradesh for the last three years.

However, Shinde himself took the sting out of the meeting by saying that the consultation process would continue "till we find a final solution". (MORE)